


two years spent before the mast

by lastwingedthing



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-13
Updated: 2011-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:46:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And no-one knows the secrets that we're hiding.</i> It's been a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two years spent before the mast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kahtya Sofia (KahtyaSofia)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KahtyaSofia/gifts).



> Written for kahtyasofia in the 2010 You Ain't Generation Kill, You Ain't Shit fic exchange. Many thanks to clavicular and schlicky for beta! The title is from an Astronautalis song.

In LA the late August afternoon is hot and so bright, sky that hazy colourless blue. Everything feels stretched and taut with the heat. Nate takes a look at the dim interior of the bar, crowded and smoky and still empty of the man he’s been waiting for, and opts for the harsh sunlight outside instead. This run-down bar isn’t his usual scene.

He chose it because he thought it might be Brad’s.

***

Nate’s beer arrives before Brad does. He sips it slowly, absently, trying not to double-guess this meeting or this evening or himself.

Perhaps the only thing that will happen tonight will be a few hours of awkward conversation, of small talk and catching up with a man who was once something almost like a friend. Nate knows he could live with nothing more than that.

But he has to _know_. He _has_ to, now that they both have the chance to try for something different. He doesn’t want to live with any more regrets.

A month after he’d officially left the Corps, he’d come out of his old office building in Pendleton with an armful of paperwork, one last forgotten load he’d left behind. As he stepped out of the doorway he saw Brad walking around a corner in the distance, almost called out, changed his mind. Brad was moving with that resigned haste that spoke of a summons from someone important and unpleasant. Nate didn’t want to disturb that.

But Brad looked back at him anyway. Quirked up the corner of his mouth and lifted his hand into a brief salute.

It’s been three years since then.

Three years since the last time Nate saw his face.

***

Brad shows up eventually, two minutes after the time they agreed on over the phone. His face is a little flushed, mouth set in a flat line. He towers over the waitresses, the seated patrons, Nate.

“Traffic,” he says tightly, frowning. Annoyance and something like awkwardness in his tone. “Didn’t time it right. Fucking civilians.”

Nate smiles with a casual ease he isn’t feeling. “I’m a civilian now too, Brad. No need to worry about military time.”

Brad is…

Brad is a little more tan now, a little thicker, a little older. A thin white scar across the back of his left hand. It’s only little details, things that someone who hadn’t trained, who hadn’t watched him the way Nate used to, would miss. His hair, his stance, the particular careful expression on his face when he looks at Nate, it’s all the same. They could be back in Pendleton. Before Iraq, before Nate left.

He hasn’t changed, and it takes Nate’s breath away.

***

It’s easy to fall into their old rhythms and patterns, the light banter, communicating the important things. Brad’s intense and focused on Nate, leaning in; but his hands are restless, picking at the label of his beer. Nate’s caught by the sight of his long fingers, blunt and competent. He knows them, has seen every inch of them: wrapped around weapons, buried inside electronics, spread across maps.

It’s so easy to fall back into the rhythm of this helpless desire. To think, he’s never seen those hands work in peacetime, in gentleness.

To think, oh, but he wants to learn.

But here and now he can’t let himself fall too far into this. There’s danger, where once there was only the sweet careless thrill of a risk he’d calculated down to its last fraction. He’d known when it came time to stop. Even if – he’d _known_.

But Nate’s a civilian now. Not Brad’s CO, not an officer. No shield left to draw between them when someone’s tone turns too warm, someone’s eyes linger too long.

There’s danger here. Dark waters.

They end up sharing a bowl of sticky spicy wings. Fingers touching, a flicker of pink tongue as Brad licks grease off his hand.

An hour later Nate rides back to Brad’s place on the back of Brad’s bike, with his arms around Brad’s waist and his chest against Brad’s back.

The vibration of the engine roars beneath him. Sweat slicks his skin.

***

Brad’s house is smaller than Nate expected. In the narrow front yard the grass is dry and patchy, long tangles choking leggy rosebushes, eucalyptus, spiky grey-green plants Nate can’t name. Brad quirks his mouth up, self-deprecating.

“Gardening is beneath my warrior spirit,” he says loftily, half-smiling. His gaze flicks Nate’s way. “Actually I end up annihilating the flowers every time I try and mow. I decapitated a whole damn rosebush last month, nearly made my sister cry when she saw it. Collateral damage in my fucking war against the weed insurgents.”

Nate shakes his head and laughs.

Inside it’s dim and cooler, blinds closed tight against the slanting evening light. The house is neat and very clean. But there’s a pair of worn flip-flops lying next to the surfboard in the corner, a spread of magazines across the couch, an empty glass by the sink.

Nate takes it all in.

“You didn’t bother to tidy for company?” he asks, teasing.

Brad looks at him, gaze direct and steady. “You’ve seen worse from me. Sir.”

“Don’t call me that,” Nate says quickly, uneasily. He’s a million years from that life. Has graduated for a second time, wears suits to work, goes to bars in the evening with colleagues who aren’t quite friends and never will be brothers. Talks about politics, travel, marriages, their boss. His life now is another universe away from that world he used to live in.

He’ll never be able to leave who he was then behind.

He doesn’t _want_ to leave himself behind.

***

They end up together in the kitchen, finally. Nate takes a deep swallow of the fridge-cold glass of water in his hand, savouring the chill of it. Brad’s standing across the room, hands resting on the counter behind him.

They’re both quiet. Brad’s eyes fixed on Nate’s, so blue.

Nate bites his lip, watching Brad watch his movements. He opens his mouth –

“Hungry?” Brad asks abruptly, looking away. There is the slightest pink flush across his cheekbones.

Nate could almost smile to see him like this, unsure and uncertain. “You know I am,” he says.

Brad sucks in an unsteady breath.

“Here,” he says roughly, reaching behind him. “Want one?”

It’s a cheap plastic bowl, garishly colourful, piled to the brim with swollen black figs. Brad picks one out and leans forward to offer it to Nate.

“Neighbour grows them. She won’t stop sending them over, gets off on overfeeding half the fucking street.”

Nate leans in to take it from his hands. Picks it up and takes a bite, tasting sweetness and fragrant juice. The skin rasps like sandpaper against his tongue.

Brad smiles a little. Nate can’t take his eyes off his mouth.

“Like this, Nate,” he says, and takes another. Peels away the skin, splits it open to get to the pink flesh inside.

Nate’s heart is pounding.

“Brad,” he says. His turn to fumble for words. Apologies, promises, pleas.

And then he leans forward. Takes a bite of the fruit from Brad’s fingers, lets his lips brush against skin.

Turns out he doesn’t need to say anything at all.

Nate’s heart is pounding. Saying, _yes, yes, yes_.

***

Brad’s bed is long but narrow. Not really wide enough for two.

It’s not a problem. Brad lies on his back, knees bent, arms taut and clenching above his head.

Nate’s kneeling over him. Skin against bare skin. Nate’s mouth on his neck.

“Nate,” Brad says, hoarse and commanding. “Nate, _please_.”

Only Brad could make begging sound like an order. Heat pools in Nate’s belly.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

He’s caught by the line of Brad’s throat, the tendons working there. The tight clench of Brad’s jaw. The red mark of Nate’s mouth worked into the soft skin under Brad’s ear.

“Yes,” he says again. “Brad. _Yes_.”

Brad’s still panting out ragged breaths as Nate works his way down. His body is still tingling and thrumming from Brad’s mouth, from the way Brad had bit and sucked and worked him. But then Nate flipped him over and the tables turned.

Now it’s Nate’s turn.  


***

Brad’s legs are so long. Everything, his whole body, those lean lines of perfect muscle. Nate can barely stand to look at him.

He presses kisses to each dimple, each sweet dip in flesh.

There’s a small scar on Brad’s lower thigh above his knee, pinkish and new. Brad sees him staring at it.

“Fucking training exercise,” he says curtly, as the muscle tenses. “Goddamn limeys. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Nate sighs. Kisses the scar with open mouth, tonguing skin.

***

Brad’s cock is long and red, jutting left. Nate swallows carefully, covering his teeth, while his fingers sneak lower.

When he presses a fingertip against the tightly-clenched hole Brad moans once, low in his throat.

Nate looks up at him. Feeling almost shy, as he lets Brad’s cock slip free from his mouth.

“Brad?” he asks, hesitant.

Brad smiles. Sweat’s trickling down his face. “You know the answer’s yes.”

It’s Nate’s turn to gasp aloud and press his cock against the sheets. He’s burning up, he wants this.

He _wants_.

***

At the first press inside Brad goes quiet and very still. Taut and frozen.

Nate feels his stomach sink. “Brad?” Nate asks carefully. “Is this…?”

Brad breathes out all at once. Nate feels it.

“Been a while,” he offers, gruffly. As he relaxes to let Nate in.

“Since you’ve been with a man?”

Brad props himself up on his elbows to meet Nate’s eyes.

“Since I’ve been with someone I wasn’t paying for the privilege.” He licks his lips, a deliberate movement, and then he clenches hard inside. “Nate. Fucking _move_.”

The pleasure turns mindless. Nate obeys without thought.

***

Nate wakes up some time after full dark. He’s naked and too hot, lying in a tight tangle with Brad on top of the blankets. The streetlight outside is orange and casting stripes across their bodies through the blinds.

Brad’s breathing is slow and regular. His eyes are closed. Nate knows he isn’t sleeping.

“I’m sorry,” Nate says.

Under him he feels Brad take in a deep breath.

“Because?”

Nate sighs a little. “Because I shouldn’t have left you like that. Should have told you why.”

The dim light casts shadows on Brad’s face. “You think I’m some prissy little civilian girl, need my hand held while we talk about our feelings?”

Nate looks at him.

“Yes.”

Brad’s quiet. Face turned away into the wall.

“I should have fucking told you what was going on. I’m sorry, Brad.” _Sorry you kissed me, in the dark up against that humvee in Iraq. Sorry I lied to you, and pushed you away. Sorry we both knew the truth._

“I couldn’t do it, couldn’t be with you then,” Nate continues slowly. “Not like that.”

“That the reason you left?” Brad’s tone is flat, unreadable. If there is anything Brad needs to forgive him for, it is leaving the Marines. But Nate can never apologise. Not for that.

“No,” Nate says quickly. And then pauses. “Yes. One reason. I would have had to lie, Brad. One more fucking lie for the Corps, one more way to compromise everything true and honourable about my service, everything I loved. I couldn’t keep doing that. No matter how much I might have wanted to.”

Brad sighs, and then turns his head to face Nate. He’s smiling, in a tiny twist of his mouth.

“You were always too fucking noble. Can’t fucking believe you’re real sometimes.” His hand comes to rest on the curve of skin over Nate’s hip, steady. They’re so close Nate can feel him breathing. “I’m not like you.”

Nate leans in towards him.

“Brad… I didn’t mean…”

Brad kisses him once, on the corner of his mouth.

“Everyone has to make compromises, Nate. Everyone has to know their line. I know what mine is. Guess I should be glad that now you’ve caught up. ”

Nate leans in to kiss him properly then. Savouring the sting of his swollen lips against Brad’s swollen mouth.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Brad smiles against his mouth. “Yeah. Now stop fucking acting like a little pussy before I kick you out of my bed as an embarrassment to your service record.

Nate smiles and presses himself closer. Tight against Brad’s skin.

***

Nate wakes up once more time that night, naked in the dark. The orange streetlight casting striped shadows across the bed.

Brad’s a still presence beside him, breathing slow and rhythmic in sleep. His arm is a warm heavy weight across Nate’s back. He’s smiling.

Nate falls asleep like that. Brad warm beside him. Brad’s heart beating in rhythm with his own.


End file.
